No, really

Real-life Tony Soprano inspiration enjoying Witness Protection life in Houstonsued over Baby Dolls strip club

To those who posit that outing a former mob boss living in hiding in the Witness Protection Program might not be the best of ideas, we say hell hath no fury like a woman cheated out of her cut of a strip club.

What's that you say? Harris County woman Lisa Hansegard has filed suit against one James Cabella for cutting her out of a shared strip joint she hired him to manage.

Cabella, a former mobster-slash-informant who apparently lives comfortably in hiding on Memorial Drive, allegedly cut Hansegard out of the (misleadingly named) Baby Dolls Boutique strip club after she hired him on as manager.

Hansegard acquired control of the club in 2006 from the estate of her late partner, who died while she was pregnant with his child (it was actually passed down to the kid). Cabella, meanwhile, had been operating a similar venue, The Penthouse Club, just across the street. The two decided to form a corporation with Cabella as manager and Hansegard personally funding the purchase of Baby Dolls for $835,000 in a sale overseen by the probate court.

Cabella, a former mobster-slash-informant who apparently lives comfortably in hiding on Memorial Drive, allegedly cut Hansegard out of the (misleadingly named) Baby Dolls Boutique strip club.

Shortly after the sale, Cabella allegedly began denying Hansegard access to the building and denying her funds from the business. The two reached an agreement in 2007 for Cabella to purchase Hansegard's interests in the business for $1.3 million, but the Cabella family made only two payments of $2,500.

Sometime during these negotiations, Hansegard uncovered Cabella's history as a mobster and informant in the DeCavalcante organized crime family of New Jersey (the real-life inspiration for The Sopranos), and that his real name was Vincent Palermo. The lawsuit states that Hansegard would never have gone into business with Cabella had she known of his background (shocking!), and it didn't help that Cabella had allegedly been funneling Baby Dolls funds into the (assumedly competing) Penthouse Club.

The "Cabella" family went on to shut down Baby Dolls completely. Look for this one on Law and Order.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”